


History (Professor), Huh?

by florahart



Category: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Genre: Alex is still from Texas just roll with it, Alex sorted into Gryffindor, Alex still wants to set himself on fire occasionally but now he has the magic to do it, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Ellen Claremont is a Squib and boy howdy has that not slowed her roll one iota, Henry is a Ravenclaw, I know - I just wrote HP for Yuletide, M/M, Nora refused to be categorized and the Hat had to make concessions, Other canonical HP characters are mentioned or referenced, Quidditch as a bonding experience, The only HP characters here are Flitwick for a sec and Hogwarts herself, The queen wishes wizards could just try NOT being magical, off-screen homophobia whose premise is rejected, reference to Nora liking girls too, reference to past Alex/Nora
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:20:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21845818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/florahart/pseuds/florahart
Summary: Alex is starting his second year teaching Muggle Studies and the textbook situation is terrible, and also what the hell why is Prince Perfect Henry Fox-Windsor even in the castle?  Wait, he'sstaying?  God, his life.
Relationships: Alex Claremont-Diaz/Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor
Comments: 45
Kudos: 228
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	History (Professor), Huh?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xslytherclawx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xslytherclawx/gifts).



> The request included these things:
> 
> _Ships / Characters:_
> 
> _-Alex/Henry (obviously)  
>  -Nora/June or June/Pez_
> 
> _Likes:_
> 
> _-For this fandom: canon compliant or canon divergent AUs, mostly. I feel like a lot of Alex and Henry’s relationship is tied to their circumstances, and while I like to believe they’d be together in any universe, I don’t think they’d act the same way with each other (but if you’d like to explore that, feel free)_  
>  _ **-Honestly, I’d also kill for a Hogwarts AU (Ravenclaw Henry, no matter what Alex says)**_
> 
> And so, the thing is, I love ridiculous animal AUs and AUs in space and coffee shop AUs and stuff, but I've also been thinking I dunno if you can go AU in this fandom because their circumstances are so foundational to their story, so naturally I looked at this in the pinch list, laughed for five minutes at the concept of the Hogwarts AU, planned something else entirely, and then, um, wrote a Hogwarts AU. Leading to a common question in my house: Brain, what are we doing and why are we doing it? But then it all started to make sense.

"It's not as though there's wiggle room, with facts," says a voice coming from the third-floor corridor, firm and clear, the subject obviously closed. The voice is new—Alex knows _everyone_ , and he doesn't know this person—and from the tone he's expecting Ministry robes. It's posh, melodious, almost ...it seems tactile in a way he can't find a word for, but it's making the hair on his arms and legs stand up? And he's just about sure he hates its owner. There's wiggle room for just about anything, and Alex doesn't like people who deal in absolutes. That’s how Voldemorts happen.

And then he steps onto the landing and turns the corner.

Damn it.

It's Henry Gods-be-damned Fox-Windsor, whose face has been in the _Prophet_ practically from birth. Born royal, he's the first acknowledged wizard in the immediate line of succession in centuries and his actual existence is an affront to the Secrecy Act, because how does one hide an entire prince? It's not as though simply erasing the collective British memory has ever worked before. 

And the face—it's perfect. It's constantly perfect, with a long, but not too long, straight nose, and just-tousled blond hair, blue eyes, a strong jaw, a shapely chin. Alex is not ashamed to say (in the privacy of his own head) that he's compared himself to that face a time or two, but they look little alike; Alex shows the olive skin of his Mexican-American father and the dark hair and eyes to go with it, and to boot, he's a great deal stockier and probably his lips are fuller and also his hair never stays where he puts it without a sticking charm, and anyway, why is Mr. Perfect here, anyway? Probably it's a state visit of some sort, he decides, the Crown asking questions about Hogwarts despite having, in general, nothing to do with it. But isn't that just like a monarchy, anyway, sticking its unnecessarily handsome nose in where it absolutely does not belong?

Speaking of which, though, what is Henry Fox-Windsor doing in _Hogwarts robes_? Blue ones, for Ravenclaw even though he has no house at all. He was educated at home, for obvious reasons (can you imagine palace guards attempting to manage the stairs? Maybe no; the guards Alex's mom tried to send here with him gave up in under a week, and finally they simply hired a witch to "attend school" with him instead), and his place in the wizarding world is an academic one: erudite papers endlessly footnoted and issued quarterly by the Ministry in cooperation with and probably funded by his family. They're always about esoteric historical wizard artists, mostly continental, mostly young men kept by wealthy households to produce for their entertainment, which is a dynamic Alex has a problem with, and as far as he can tell, Henry Fox-Windsor does not.

Also, how has Alex never heard him speak before? He would have remembered that voice. It's appealing, and that's unfortunate because Alex has no interest in Henry Fox-Windsor. None. They have nothing in common.

Well, there's no need for him to remain here on the landing; he can read the man's papers any time, and has, and they're mostly pompous and who needs it, really? Dense discussions of comparative sculpture and whether the artists were purebloods. Long descriptions of various sorts of stone. Considerations of the merits of different artistic movements. It's quite dull. Also, he has enough on his plate with his own endeavors, and so, yes. He'll just go. 

Maybe one more glance. The hair looks even softer in person than it ever has on rough newsprint, and yes, Alex has seen the image in glossy magazines before, because who hasn't; the man would be an underwear model except for how unseemly that would be according to his grandmother the queen (who, rumor has it, feels that it would be better for everyone if all of wizarddom could just try _not_ being magical). But he might never get another up-close look, since he has exactly no reason to intersect with the Fox-Windsor household or its members again, or for that matter right now, and so he looks. 

Merlin's shiny _knob_ , he's beautiful in the sunlight streaming in through the tower window.

And the subdued light as he moves into the corridor.

And when he turns his head to listen, his face now in profile.

It’s quite unfair. No one should have all the privilege that man does and also be jaw-droppingly handsome.

He hasn't managed to look away yet when the Headmaster notices him. "Alex? Alex, do come here and meet our new Historian and professor," Filius says in that frustratingly cheerful way he so often has. It's what's made him such an excellent Charms master, an area that is the introduction to formal magic for most of the children who come in from outside of magic circles—kids born into Muggle or even Squib households, or sometimes ones like him, aware of and surrounded by magic, but raised primarily by a parent who has none.

What's his choice? He goes over and offers a hand to Henry the Magnificent.

Touching his palm, which Alex expects to be cool and waxy, is even worse than just looking at him. He's warm, and he's soft, and his lips part, just so, when Alex introduces himself, and there's the tiniest flush.

Which is why Alex entirely chokes on his own spit when he belatedly pays attention to Filius's last couple of sentences, in which he learns that Henry Fox-Windsor will actually, truly, be taking the post recently and at last vacated by Professor Binns. And bringing his entirely unmagical _beagle_ into the castle with him as though the poor creature won't end up bamboozled by the situation.

He shakes hands for much too long, stares into blue eyes that are definitely assessing him and probably finding him wanting, and finally stammers something about a forgotten cup of tea in the staff room so that he can flee.

He can absolutely feel the eyes watching his back as he quickwalks to the stairs and down one flight, forgetting to arrest their movement so he winds up on the wrong mezzanine entirely, and fuck everything ever, he's going to have to share an office, isn't he? History and Muggle Studies are among the more closely-related fields, if History is done correctly and isn't a bunch of bigotry and poison.

The tea is, in fact, still in the staff room, but he doesn't drink it. To hell with tea; this is definitely the time to haul out the coffee his father taught him to drink, possibly with a little shot of something to warm it up.

Because if he has to be in touching distance of Henry Fox-Windsor all fucking year, Alex? Is going to die of either pomposity or rules.

\---

He's had a moment to gather himself by the time he puts his ass in his chair the next afternoon, and like, he's been around plenty of assholes working for his mom between terms or dealing with the high level of fuckery all of Slytherin house seems to take as a point of pride (or, actually, he thinks it's that they're proud of _having_ pride regarding purity or some damn thing? They aren't all terrible people, but they sure like to pretend they are), and he has a lot of experience letting it all just wash away because he hates assholes but he hates losing even more and getting points docked every two seconds for fighting was never going to be his thing. 

So, all right, what are the positives in the situation? Maybe there are possibilities in the fact that he's trapped in an office with the most obnoxiously perfect individual in the British Isles, right? Maybe Sir Henry the Unaccountably Beautiful, and damn it, Alex is really going to have to refrain from calling him that even in his head because there is just no chance it won't eventually come out his mouth and there is basically nothing in the entire world he needs less so let's start practicing right _now_ , Maybe Professor Fox-Windsor, there, that's not so bad, will agree to a slight modification of the history curriculum to more expressly make clear to students that the bits of history in which wizardkind made attempts to exterminate Muggles on the basis that they were lesser beings were all terrible and to be learned from, not cold facts of no relevance to the present day.

Right? He might go for that. Right? If it's presented as a matter of, like, academic honesty?

Except, well. Is that the sort of thing that a Royal would even take into consideration? Are there differences? Alex's parents are a little complicated, in that his dad has some, um, nontraditional magicultural background (because like it or not, brown Tejano/Latino wizards are sometimes less welcome than one might hope at Ilvermorny, and so there are a lot of abuelas who teach things maybe not in compliance with the standard curriculum), and his Mom’s a Texas-bred Squib diplomat which as far as Alex can tell has never precluded her doing any damned thing she wants, but so his point is, he can't help being deeply, almost intuitively, aware of the way class, race, and magical status are tangled up and how history may be unkind to some of all of the groups of which Alex is a part.

And sure, he's (approximately) Muggle-born himself, the prince/professor/demigod that will, any minute, take up his seat at the other desk, centuries of rumors about the bloodline notwithstanding, but he also has things like "crown jewels" and "a royal treasury" more or less at his disposal, or at least, his grandmother does, and his brother eventually will. 

So does he even care about the stuff Alex wants to bring into the curriculum? Does he recognize the relationship between wizarding history and Muggle Studies? Does he get that for all Alex’s mom is a dynamo and smart as fuck, his dad had to tolerate mountains of nonsense about following her on her diplomatic career just because she wasn’t magical? Does he know how many times Muggles have been gas-lighted about the magic they’ve witnessed, and how goddamned _damaging_ that is?

Probably not. 

Alex thinks about whether to bring it up anyway – now, of course, before the term starts, and it's currently 18 August so he should move on with it if he means to – but he even gets tongue-tied in his own mind when he considers asking Professor Fox-Windsor about whether any of his excessively-referenced scholarship ever touched on issues of class.

For that matter, whether any of it has been about history, anyway. Art is tied to, but not identical to, history.

Huh.

He works on his syllabus and ignores the door opening. They can talk about it tomorrow, or some other day when Alex isn’t an uncharacteristically flustered idiot unable to stop sneaking sidelong glances at his office-mate's hands.

Honestly. His _hands_ are even fucking beautiful, with long, strong fingers that Alex is sure are professionally manicured and massaged. He probably has a personal finger masseuse. Maybe one for each hand, to maintain smooth skin and no hangnails (Alex’s hangnails have hangnails) and evenly cut nails that don’t look like a chainsaw was at all involved in their maintenance.

Also, his jumper is a buttery-soft knit that Alex can tell without actually taking in the full sight must set off his eyes perfectly, and Alex is basically going to die.

Also also, he'd brought his dog in with him, and sent him to a little pillow-bed thing in one corner, and he speaks to him occasionally, as though the dog is the person to whom he tells his troubles. It's distracting and also kind of heartbreaking. The dog, for his part, picks up his head and listens to everything, and occasionally comes over and snuffles at Alex, wagging his whole butt for pets.

Which Alex gives, because he is not an asshole.

So Alex spends a long time paging through the textbook they used last year (wholly unsatisfactory, but he’d really hoped that a more thoughtful investigation would help him find a way to use it productively) and sighs, then starts a list of things the ideal, or at least the not-actively-harmful fourth- and fifth-year textbook should have.

> 1\. Actual content produced by Muggles.  
>  2\. Actual lack of bigotry evident in authorial word choices.  
>  3\. Diversity of examples; for instance, it’s simply not true that all Muggles are teenaged boys who are obsessed with football, either kind.  
>  4\. Specific examples of Muggle contributions to wizarding society.  
>  5\. Specific ways in which wizards have withheld contributions that could help Muggle society.  
>  6\. Discussion of alternative ways to maintain the Secrecy Act without being shits.  
>  7\. Information regarding Muggle technology which is not, ‘it’s all batshit insane and they say it uses lightning and cards with holes in them.’  
>  7a. Information regarding Muggle technology which was last updated sometime after the sunsetting of ENIAC. Seriously what the fuck.  
>  8\. Jesus Christ maybe acknowledgment that neither society has a stranglehold on incredibly unsupported bias.

He rubs his eyes. No such book exists and he’s going to have to goddamn write it, but he absolutely does not have time to do so before the start of the new term, so it’s going to be cobbling together articles and scrolls and flyers, and probably spending considerably more time than he wants to at the library in Cambridge and ugh, maybe Nora can help him. He quick-copies the list, jots a note on it to send her, and realizes that if he sends it now she’ll start now, and it’s nearly midnight. He charms it to go in the morning.

\---

“You might see if Chadwick, in Boston, has anything at the appropriate level,” Henry the Glowing says to him three mornings later at the staff breakfast table. They’ve both waited until late to come down, and anyway, only about a third of the staff have reported for the term, so it’s just them. 

Henry, it appears, is a great fan of bacon and sweet pastries.

Not that Alex needs this information for any reason at all.

“What?”

“He writes on modern history and intersectionality. It’s not all specific to magic versus Muggle, but there might be something, and if not you might be able to follow his citations back. Oh, or Gardstein, if you’re comfortable in German.” David, the dog, begs for some bacon and gets a treat pulled out of a pocket somewhere, probably because Henry the Responsible doesn't feed his dog people food.

Alex is staring.

All right, that’s sort of probably going to be his default, with Henry the Rudely Magnificent. 

But. “Were you going through my desk?”

“I was ...not.” Henry drinks something that might actually be straight melted chocolate, which is interesting since Alex is of the understanding that British people who are proper and well-bred are all about their tea and he sort of wants to know why the chocolate, but asking is going to involve visibly noticing and he's ...not doing that. Henry sets down his cup and adds, “...Exactly.”

“You were not, exactly? So you were, approximately?”

Henry the Angelic, whose beauty makes the gods weep, offers a little shrug and a purse of the lips. “It wasn’t on purpose. Only, I felt that perhaps since Professor Binns had no need of space, I might be intruding, and then you kept sighing, and I wondered whether there were any areas on which we might collaborate. History is all about who’s telling it, after all.” He picks up bacon in his fingers, eats it daintily, and licks his fingers.

Alex hates, like, wants to set things on fire hates, that Prince Henry is a person who knows the word intersectionality, eats bacon with his fingers, uninvitedly considers collaboration with a brown American Hogwarts alumnus, and has a wet pink tongue that is currently visible and also a sudden tiny wisp of smoke coming up off the shoulder of his robes. Shit.

“Ice cubes,” Alex says.

“I. What?”

Alex doesn’t actually want to explain that sometimes when he wants to set things on fire, things actually, you know, set on fire because this is the joy of being a really strong wizard with ADHD and a lot of opinions? So he says, er, “Thank you? For the tips. But you’re not in the way. Exactly. Like, I was used to being in the office alone but it’s fine, you should use your space.” And then, because clearly self-preservation is not a thing he is able to have or maintain and he definitely needs to change the subject, he asks, “Are you a Catapults man?”

“Catapults? The medieval siege weapon?”

“What? No! Catapults, the Caerphilly Quidditch team. You’re sometimes called the Prince of Wales, right?”

Henry blinks at him. “I …am, but.” He twists his lips a bit. "You do know I'm not, in fact, from Wales?"

"No shit, since you are from a castle that is only slightly less ancient than this one, but like, I figured you would fly your Walesish flag or something when it comes to sport things?"

"The adjectival form of Wales is _Welsh_."

Alex rolls his eyes. "Yes, Sir Henry the Grammatical, I was exercising poetic license."

"This would require an act of poetry."

See, they'd been getting along so well. But Alex had been right, the man was an ass. A beautiful, apparently intelligent, ass. Ugh. He shoves some bacon in his mouth and drops the subject.

“However. I never, so, Quidditch is not an appropriate royal occupation?”

"What?"

"I have no Quidditch flag, _Welsh_ or otherwise, because I wasn't allowed to participate.

“For playing, or watching?”

“Either. I wasn’t aware there was a Welsh team, actually. It… never came up? Also, anything involving flying about on brooms was a thing I was not to do. I actually, um, don't. Fly." Henry looks down at his hands. "Never have."

"Well, once you have Apparation it's hardly an impediment not to, right?" Alex can't help himself, he wants to make Henry stop looking all melancholy, and what the hell is wrong with him.

"It's hardly the point, though, is it? Although I can't imagine David would be a fan, anyway."

"I... is it?" Alex isn't sure where this is going. "Also I expect your allowance could probably stretch far enough for a carrier; people with rats and cats and Kneazles do all right."

"Any allowance my grandmother gives me is not to be used for being, and this is a direct quote, a freak, so I cannot purchase a dog carrier for my non-existent broom. I also was very firmly informed that any inkling I was using my 'unfair advantage' in other ways would result in loss of privileges. So, Quidditch, right out. My game is, or was, or maybe is, I don’t know, it’s all a bit confusing since I agreed to come here as I'm not sure it's a thing among wizards, but polo.”

"I don't think it is, but then, neither is mine. Lacrosse."

"What?"

"I picked it up as a kid. Before my mom took up her post in London, and then, like, between summers with mi abuelo once I was a student?"

"Your grandfather?"

"You speak Spanish?"

"A few words, although really it's that I have Italian, and cognates, although that particular word isn't one. But, your grandfather?"

"I spend summers in Texas and across the border in Mexico," Alex explains. "Lacrosse is a growing sport in Mexico, but in Austin it's totally a thing."

"And it's entirely Muggle?"

"Basically? I feel like it has some things in common with Quodpot, but then, any game with goals and a ball that one has to move to opposing ends are going to have commonalities."

"Perhaps I should like to see it, sometime."

"Lacrosse? But not Quidditch?"

"Well, I've come this long without seeing a Quidditch match. My grandmother would be very put out, and her opinions are, literally, law, so I'm not allowed. She made an agreement with someone in the Ministry about it when I was ten."

And now Alex is just mad. The angry kind. Look, it’s not rocket surgery or anything, but Quidditch is fun, and also who gets mad at a kid going to a ballgame with his friends. 

Wait. Does Henry have friends? Alex frowns, trying to remember if he has ever, _ever_ seen reference to Henry doing anything with anyone who was not his very proper-appearing brother or one of his royal valets. Maybe twice. Oh, well and Muggle friends from other obscenely-rich families, obviously, not that those don't count, but they wouldn't really help with Quidditch. 

"Don't you have friends?"

Jesus, Alex, can you not. He shakes his head. "I mean. I'm surprised you didn't end up sneaking in with a friend or a girlfriend's brother, or..."

"I've interacted with a total of six wizards who were not my tutors. All of them were mostly interested in seeing if I were so odd as they'd been led to believe."

Alex ignores the fact that his stomach is telling him maybe it would be good if he were to stop trying to find out if Henry is as odd as he'd been led to believe, although it's not really odd so much as spoiled, jerk-ish, and overly proper. Sooooo back to Quidditch.

“Um, well, so there are two teams in Wales, Caerphilly and Holyhead. The Harpies only fly women, so some men are stupid about following them, but whatever, also now you have to choose because there is a match between the two of them next Thursday and you are absolutely going.”

“I have to choose? Based on what?”

“Based on which team you want to cheer on. Also, by the way, we're doing flying lessons tomorrow, just so you'll understand what you're seeing.”

“I.” Henry frowns, and for fuck’s sake even that is perfect, the exact right amount of forehead crinkle and the perfect degree of pout, and Alex was better off being angry at the textbook. "If you insist?"

Alex shoves another forkful of eggs in his mouth so as not to comment on the perfection problem and starts planning who he needs to fuck to get access to secure areas of the pitch. He does not ask himself why he wants to make Henry smile. 

\---

Nora, because she is the cleverest witch since Hermione Granger (Alex's private opinion is that she might be cleverer, but Granger is a legend and he occasionally manages not to say out loud things that will lead to his messy death at the hands of the other legends with whom said cleverest witch maintains lifelong friendship), comes through big with a whole binder and cross-referenced system of shit for Alex's class, and while not everything is exactly what he wanted, he's interested to see she did, in fact, pull heavily from both Chadwick and Gardstein, which leads to a conversation about the current office and syllabus situation.

She tells him he's an idiot not to have started sooner and also that maybe this will get the bug out of his butt about Henry Fox-Windsor, so he charms a small cup over her head to spill maple syrup in her hair. She retaliates with a slipping hex that puts him on his ass and he tosses _absitloquoro_ at her, and she glares and starts signing furiously, a combination of ASL and well-known colloquial gesturing from both sides of the Atlantic until it wears off. There is then an extremely undignified chase, but Alex was only Gryffindor; Nora was the first person in the history of the castle who insisted that the hat afford her space in two houses—one in a tower, one in a dungeon—on the basis that she contains multitudes, and resultantly she knows more about the castle than maybe anyone since the famous mapmakers. 

Alex does not win, is what this means.

They collapse in a pile on the sofa in the staff room, cackling, and Nora conjures cups and pulls an entire shrunk-down liquor cabinet out of her bag, and by the time Henry opens the door, sweaty from what Alex concludes was an actualfacts _run_ , like for _exercise_ (which, _Alex_ runs so that's totally something they could have done together and he is sure his propensity to pound out miles when struggling with difficult problems was in several of the stupid Diplomat's Son spreads in gossipy mags so clearly this is information Henry could know about him?), they are three extremely potent drinks in and Nora is finger-combing Alex's hair while sprawled half-straddling his lap.

(Look, he would never do this with the students in the castle. He's an adult and this would serve as a poor example, but it's still August and everyone knows even the great Dumbledore sometimes cut loose when the situation called for it.)

Henry pauses in the doorway, then flushes and asks rather stiffly if he should leave them alone.

Alex blows a raspberry and shakes his head, beckoning Henry with one hand and shoving Nora to the side. "Come'ere," he says. "There's always room for one more on Alex's lap."

He has no idea why he says this, but Nora pats him on the head and slides all the way to the far arm of the couch, then points Henry at Alex's lap. "Take it while you can," she says. "He tells the truth when he's drunk." 

"I tell the truth when I'm _not_ drunk," Alex says, grumpy to have to defend his honor in front of Sir Henry the, the honorable, probably, but anyway why is Nora _like_ this?

Nora shrugs. "Yes, but less expansively." She beams at Henry. "Unbridled honestly is more a thing requiring lubrication."

"And I'm not interrupting." Henry sounds uncertain, and Alex feels a stab of discomfort in his belly. Maybe he should lay off the booze.

"So much no," Nora says. "We banged it out a couple years ago and worked out that didn't need to happen again.

"You 'banged it ...out'? In context I feel like this means—"

"Yep, but for one thing sex with men is a sometimes food for me, and for another thing I think Alex has other interests. Plus this way I get to embarrass him without fucking up my relationship, so, you know, bonus. If I was going to go all horizontal mambo with a royal it'd be your sister. If she were into that. Hey I'm Nora." She holds out her hand.

Henry stands there for a good three or four seconds as though he's trying to understand how the world works—and there's a shadow of The Frown again, so that's no good—and then takes her hand and shakes it. "Holleran, yes. I believe I've seen your work in Dentholm's?"

Alex feels affronted.

Like, _affronted_. Why does Gorgeous Henry know Nora by name? She's amazeballs, obviously, but he's no slouch, right? And his mom—anyway, why do these things always happen to him?

"Because you're drunk, Alejandro," Nora says.

Before he works out that this means he probably said at least some of that out loud and has a chance to roll it back and decide if he actually said the _gorgeous_ part, Henry carefully sits down next to him, their thighs touching all the way from hip to, well, it would be knee except Henry not only is physically perfect in every other irritating way, but he is also considerably taller than Alex, so his knees are a mile away. "Is that your legal name, then? Alejandro?"

"No, it's Alexander, after the founding father, but Nora is a bitch."

"We've talked about this, little one. I may call myself a bitch. You may not." Nora's point would be more forceful except that the finger pointing at him is sort of more pointing at his left eyebrow than his nose.

"Sorry," Alex says. "I know. It's just been a stressful week."

Nora snorts and hands Henry a drink. 

It's large and very pink, and seems to have some kind of frothy sweet vapor steaming off it.

"I believe I am terrified," Henry says. He examines the cup, then looks at Alex. "Can she be trusted?"

"You trust me to answer that?" Alex has no control of his goddamned mouth.

"I do. Also, Ms. Holleran is an internationally-renowned genius, and sometimes genii are evil." 

"She won't kill you with a witness," Alex says.

Nora nods proudly.

Henry shrugs and downs almost half the drink at once, then coughs. "That's _really sweet_ ," he sputters.

Nora bats her eyelashes. "Thank you."

Alex snorts and snags the cup to take a sip. It is, actually, very sweet. "Did you just say _genii_?" he asks.

"If you would argue for Walesish, I claim the right." 

Nora claps her hands as though something important and fun is happening, and then hops up and starts tossing things in her bag. "Last call?"

Alex shakes his head. 

Henry holds up his cup. "This shall most likely last me three days, and I'll need to take David out for his constitutional in an hour or so."

"Good. When you wake up, help our boy here look through the rest of Chadwick's citations. Also, for your class maybe think about Santino and the whole disappearing of peoples thing? In Rome, I mean, not that hack in Bolivia." She doesn't wait for an answer, snapping her bag shut and heading much less drunkenly than should be possible for the door.

Alex thinks about Henry's thigh alongside his, and turns to look at him. "I don't really see how you know who she is. Also, are you going to introduce her to Bea?"

"Maybe, although I do feel come degree of concern that the two of them working toward any common cause might tear the fabric of space. She's quite something, Nora." Alex scowls and Henry the Magnificent looks at him, flushed as pink as his drink, and says quietly, "Don't worry, Alex. It's only that your work is generally published with a photograph that doesn't do you justice." He flings an arm around Alex's shoulders. "Sorry I didn't take the space on your lap, but I thought I might smother you, with your face coming up only to my chest and so forth."

And all right, that's better then. Wait, and worse; Alex is not _that_ much shorter! He scowls with indignation, but Henry offers him a fuzzy smile, and he decides maybe tonight is a good night for forgiveness. Maybe they can be, like, friends, as long as they're sharing spaces.

He watches Henry finish most of the drink, then snags the last sip for himself with a grin.

\---

The Harpies, to the excitement of their home crowd, absolutely cream the Catapults. Alex is cheering for the Catapults because Henry said if Alex had thought he must be a Catapults man, then that was what he would be, but it doesn't matter that they're losing like it's their job; he's spent the whole match explaining rules to Henry, who is literally in disguise.

Apparently the queen was not kidding, and made the exclusion rule binding upon someone high up in the league; Henry explained it all and frankly it sounds illegal to him, but then, queens live by their own code, he guesses.

So Henry is still tall, still pink, but his blue eyes are muddy hazel and his hair is an auburn that's a shade too dull to be beautiful and receding to nearly the top of his head. His nose has a great dent and he's grown out and charmed brown a mustache that is only just not-patchy enough that the weird gap in it is obvious. His teeth look as though he fell on his face repeatedly in his youth, and his clothes have been modified for the worse as though a drunken tailor trained by someone who primarily made clown costumes had been in charge. He looks terrible.

And Alex has had the _best_ time. He's explained about the positions, pointed out strategies, demonstrated key moves with his hands, and drawn pictures and charts on the backs of their napkins while they eat a lot of terrible fried food and drink more cheap ale than he wants to think about. 

Henry, for his part, has listened carefully, shouted appropriately, and asked hundreds of questions. It's as though he thinks he'll never get the chance again, and like, yes, the queen, whatever, but Alex is definitely asking June to put some work into this because no one needs this kind of control over another person. It's gross. And June has some kind of weird friendship with the Minister for Magical Sport or whatever his title is, and Alex is not above using that to Henry's advantage. Even princes need connections sometimes.

When they visit the Catapult changing room, the mood is a bit subdued—the team has only just managed to avoid their worst drubbing ever—but even still, Henry is so enthusiastic all the players cheer up just from their interaction.

It's frankly fucking adorable, and they toast the team with still more terrible ale and Henry buys what Alex conservatively estimates is every branded item the team sells and gets things signed, and it's only because Alex remembers at five minutes to midnight that Henry literally is about to turn into a pumpkin (not literally, Alex, Henry says; I will not become an orange gourd lying about waiting for Halloween, but he says it with a brightness in his eyes and Alex can tell he's being a _funny_ shit, not a _shitty_ shit) that they say their goodbyes and safely Apparate to Hogsmeade at two minutes to the hour.

They walk up to the castle together, still laughing, and spend a comfortable hour dissecting the plays at the staff room table, and Alex thinks it's nice, actually, to have a friend on the staff. After David's trip outside, when they've reverted, again, to leaning against each other on the couch drinking something Henry's concocted out of a stash of his own, Henry's thigh is again warm against his, and Alex could get used to clandestine giggling Quidditch fanaticism.

\---

Waking up the next morning is the worst idea Alex has ever had, but it's light out and his bladder has opinions and also... and also there is someone with him on the bed. 

On, not in, this is not a walk of shame situation, not that there would be any reason to be ashamed as, let's review, the students haven't returned. Well, and even if they had, professors are people and healthy sex lives are not inappropriate unless they're happening on the front steps or something. And this is his bed, to which he vaguely remembers stumbling while laughing about proprietary formulas (? well, tipsiness will certainly breed absurd conversations), so that's all right.

Alex stays put a minute longer, bladder be damned, and tries to work out who he knows that cuddles in close and also can both have feet touching the bottoms of his feet and a chin in the middle of the back of his head. A chin that's moving, lips that are nuzzling, a hand sliding through his armpit and catching a nipple on one thumb... right, so this has to stop, right? Like, sleepsex is problematic, and he's ninety percent sure the other party is still sleeping. But who _is_ it?

Finally, he gives up, turns on his back, sits up, tosses away the blanket, and says _oh fuck me_ because of course, there's practically no one else around anyway, besides Filius who is super not the right size to have been this person, so obviously, but like, how. 

Making sense of the presence of Prince Perfection, wearing y-fronts and one sock and a lot of warm pinky-gold skin, in his bed is not for a man with a full bladder, so he goes and deals with that, then comes back into the room.

Prince Perfection has vacated the premises.

Alex doesn't know what to do with any of this, so he gathers up his clothes and heads for the shower.

Which doesn't turn on.

Why! How does this even – it's magic, and aside from the rumors of incidents beneath the dungeons and the well-established truth of Moaning Myrtle, the plumbing has never failed, but when he turns on the water absolutely nothing happens.

Shit.

He takes his bundle of clothes and starts down the hall to the nearest student showers. Nearest is Ravenclaw; his apartments are on the north side of the building where the overlap amongst the stairs is just mean, and so he goes up a half-flight, hops up and bounces off the railing, grabs the downward set half-turned away, and ducks so when hey turn back under he winds up on the southeast landing. It's ridiculous, but since he _is_ closest when their head of house is out of the castle, he figured out how to manage the trip the fastest during the duplication incident last January.

The common room door is ajar, but that's because this is the time of year new riddles are produced so the usual guard is off conferring with other great 'Claws of the past, so he goes on through and has his shirt over his head before he realizes there's already water running.

Maybe Stanton is back on campus earlier than expected? If the water is misbehaving in all the faculty baths it stands to reason he'd be here, so Alex shrugs and ditches his trousers, then marches into the showers. 

Nothing about his life to date has prepared him for Prince Perfection, shiny-slick with soapy water, leaning against the far wall with his face in the crook of his elbow, jacking himself like he's going for a land speed record.

Alex stares, then stares some more, then starts to back out of the room so he can make some noise, but stops short when Henry moans.

When Henry moans _his name_.

Well.

So now he has a couple of choices, but it looks like one of them is going to involve reclaiming the warm soft embrace and maybe dragging a post-orgasmic prince back to his bed? He's sure he's not supposed to have heard that, but he did, and to his surprise, but it's, like, low-key surprise, like the clues have been there but only his sub-subconscious was paying attention, he's very interested in hearing it again. Up close. Today.

Maybe now.

"Henry," he says, loud enough to carry over the water.

Henry stiffens and stands away from the wall, but doesn't turn, and his shoulders sag. "Alex, you--"

"Needed a shower because my bath is broken? Yes. And then my day got interesting."

"So you heard." His voice is flat, a match to the shoulders, and his head is bowed. He glances over his shoulder, but his eyes are hooded and afraid. "This is the other thing, besides magical, that my grandmother thinks I should try just _not_ being."

Alex shakes his head. "You're family is fucked, man."

"Tell me about it." Henry looks over his shoulder now. "Imagine the joy of living it."

Alex nods. "So, like. Do you think we... was last night a, was that. Um."

"It's only what you want it to be, Alex. You can forget what you saw."

But Alex, moving to an adjacent shower automatically and finding the soap, realizes as he blinks away water and watches Henry's long, broad back flex and stretch as he rubs in shampoo that he kind of completely does not want to forget it, at all. 

This should definitely uncomplicate his life. Shit. 

\---

"Can I ask you something?" David is taking literal years to determine under which shrub to shit, and it's raining, so Alex has a great need to talk to pass the time. 

Henry watches his ridiculous dog nose all the way around yet another bush and puts up an umbrella charm over all of them because wet dog is just easier to prevent than to solve. "You're going to whether I allow it or not, right?"

"Shut up. Probably. Anyway. You seem, like, I don't know, really different from what I expected?"

"Yes, well, since your expectations were probably built on carefully palace-curated half-truths and lies packaged to be sold to the Muggle public, I think maybe that's to be expected." 

Alex wrinkles his face up into a squinty scowl. "Okay, fair I guess, but so the first thing I heard you say was, _it's not as though there's wiggle room, with facts_ , and then Filius said you were going to be the history professor and I thought well, shit, this is going to be terrible?"

"...Thank you?"

"No, but so you seem not particularly stuck on specific interpretations of fact, and I was wondering--"

"What it was my brother meant by the statement?"

"Huh?"

"When we met, I'd just been explaining that my brother, who feels a great deal of animosity toward my previous academic work, was happy to hear I'd be working with history rather than the unpredictable and open-to-interpretation field of art. Because history, you see, is made of facts."

Alex thinks about this for a second, and really he should learn to keep his mouth shut, but like, that is so fantastically stupid he asks, "Is your brother unusually poorly educated for a Royal? Or just, as we sometimes said in Texas, hard pressed to win an intellectual contest with a fence post?"

Henry presses his lips together and Alex starts to apologize because he's sure he's being insulting. Maybe Henry really loves his brother a lot? Alex loves June a lot and nobody gets to say shit about her even when she's the worst. But then Henry makes a noise that is ...that is a _snort_ , a suppressed one in the middle of a giggle that practically turns into a hiccup, and Alex shrugs. "Well!"

Henry finally wipes his eyes. "Neither, just heavily aware of his Very Serious Responsibilities as a one-day King. I didn't disabuse him of the notion, though. At least not yet. If he starts being an arse while representing the crown I guess I can work on him then."

"Jesus. This whole time I was thinking you didn't know history is written by the victors--"

"Which, to be fair, has historically been the British in a lot of cases, or at least, there was a long time when that was true."

"You _think_ ," Alex says. "But you might have just been reading the British side of the story."

"You're a shit. But no, this is why I go looking for things like Santino's first-person accounts. I've been thinking about whether there's an effective way to incorporate some solid lessons on primary and secondary sources – I'm given to understand the old Professor Binns never strayed from a list of recitation, but history's a living thing, and it deserves better."

David finishes his business and comes to sit at Henry's feet, but Alex isn't done with this conversation, so they go inside and settle, together again, on the sofa in the faculty room. David climbs up on Henry's other side and sets his head on Henry's thigh.

Alex is ...jealous. Jealous of a dog. His life is not reasonable.

"So, you're adding the Santino? What else?"

"For a start, a variety of social-political movements of the twentieth century? I think the old course ended around the fist year of Victoria's reign."

"You may have a lot of ground to make up."

"Why do you want to know?"

Alex shrugs. "So, about the shower."

Henry blinks. "While this castle's plumbing is also somewhat Victorian-era—"

"No." Alex shrugs again and shakes his head. "I just, I wanted to know, before I jump in with both feet, and let's be fair, that's exactly who I am so I'm probably jumping anyway, how to reconcile the facts thing with the man who offers up citations for my syllabus unasked and grows a terrible mustache just so he can sneak in to Quidditch with me."

"Jumping how?" Henry's pulled half an inch away, looking wary, and Alex is having none of that. He leans over and presses his lips to Henry's. 

"Um. Like that?"

Henry shakes his head. "You're not, I've seen newspapers, and your mother, so you're a bit, and there have been, plus Nora," he winds down. "You don't kiss men."

"You _think_ ," Alex says again. "But I mean, my image is, okay, less constructed than yours because diplomat, rather than head of the British Empire, potato potahto? But still."

"So you _do_ kiss men."

"To date, once, but anything anyone does has to be done first once."

Henry squints at him. "And then?"

"And then, I'm really hoping you've kissed men more than once, because I have some questions. A lot of questions."

"And you you thought you'd ask them of me, here in the lounge?"

Alex shakes his head. "I'm a pretty tactile learner. Also, it seems more like a bedroom conversation."

"Also, I don't need to see it," says a voice from overhead. Alex looks up into the grumpy sneer of a portrait, a small dark-haired man with a beak of a nose and sallow skin. "Honestly. The teenagers are quite enough, and now I've a pampered prince and an American all but rutting on the couch in _here_." The portrait man flounces to the back corner of the painting, then shouts, "I can still see you, and I can still call the House Elves to come disapprove of your dirty habits."

Henry is looking up, upside down, at the portrait figure, then raises his eyebrows and looks back at Alex. 

Alex surges forward and kisses him again, then stands. "Come on. Let's talk about our dirty habits somewhere else."

Henry stands with him, then crowds in and leans down, offering a bruising kiss of his own.

Alex's head is spinning when they come up for air, but there is, in fact, a small army of House Elves surrounding them, and they flee for Alex's quarters.

\---

Twenty minutes later, Alex has in fact set himself on fire.

It's an accident, and luckily Henry is quick at dumping ice into the situation, because burning the bed down is not supposed to be a literal thing.

Fucking ADHD.

They douse the flames and restore the fabric and reassure the four (why! Where did they all come from!) House-Elves who have showed up to assist, and then they look at each other, laugh, and flop down on Alex's couch. 

There's nothing like an ice bath to wilt an erection, and it's, well. It's going to be a minute.

Alex summons a (dry) blanket and covers them both, then leans toward Henry. "This was not, actually, what I was expecting when you arrived."

"No? You didn't look at me and think, well, he teaches history so he must be incredibly horny and in need of remedial sport assistance?"

"You know I absolutely need to see you play polo, right?"

"One thing at a time. First, we have an arriving feast to attend and lessons to administer."

Alex counts the days in his head. "Tomorrow is the twenty-ninth."

"Yes."

"So we have three days."

"I can't argue with your arithmetic."

Alex rolls toward Henry and straddles his legs. "Then I think we should draw up a timetable to maximize, you know, everything, but first?" He grips Henry's hips with his knees, frames Henry's face in his hands, and presses their lips together again. "First I really think I need to touch you. A lot. Is that okay?"

Henry shrugs, too casual. "I imagine I'd survive the experience."

Alex sits up. "Really?"

"Christ. No. Really yes, it's not just okay. But..." He pauses and then offers the smallest smile, one Alex thinks three days ago he wouldn't have understood to be an expression at all, and adds, "but thank you, for taking an interest in what I want."

Alex drops forward and squeezes Henry into a hug – just a hug, nothing sexy except for the naked and under a blanket aspect, and thinks about ice cubes for a long count of ten before whispering, "Baby, your family sucks."

Henry shakes his head against Alex's shoulder. "Not always. Just about certain things. Sorry, though. I feel I've put a damper on your fun."

Alex shakes his head. "Not mine, right? Ours?"

Henry nods. "Ours." And then he pulls Alex back into another kiss.

It's urgent, but this time he's careful. No more fire, no more ice, definitely no more House Elves. He traces Henry's lips with his tongue and sweeps in when he opens up, and Henry makes a soft little sound Alex puts away in his memory to revisit later.

In a minute, he's taking him back to the bed. 

In two minutes, he's finding his way down the broad chest to explore his body.

In five minutes, he's really hoping they've put the ice behind them.

In an hour, he's definitely doing this again.


End file.
